


The Wax is Melting ( I Need to See Under)

by wyrmy



Series: Our Hopes of Endless Light [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Autistic Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale was a Cherub, Canon Compliant, Crowley's Fall (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Post-Canon, Sort-of, Touch-Starved, Wing Grooming, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27728390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyrmy/pseuds/wyrmy
Summary: When Crowley decides to take a post-apocalyptic nap, Aziraphale waits with increasing anxiety for him to wake up.
Relationships: Aziraphale & God (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & God (Good Omens)
Series: Our Hopes of Endless Light [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980841
Comments: 12
Kudos: 120





	The Wax is Melting ( I Need to See Under)

**Author's Note:**

> T rating for language. there's a brief description of a self-harm impulse, although it is not followed through on. This one is bit longer than the others in this series, and consequently took a little more time. I hope you enjoy!

Aziraphale was starting to feel a bit twitchy. He’d been alone in enclosed spaces with less to do for longer in the past, but what with one thing and another…

Best not to dwell on it.

Crowley had actually nodded off in the Ritz during their celebratory lunch and Aziraphale had had the honour of bringing him home to his flat and tucking him into his bed, but that was five days ago, give or take.

Crowley was still sleeping.

Aziraphale was in what Crowley was pleased to call his “lounge”, but he could hear Crowley’s quiet breathing all the way from the bedroom. It’s not as if there was anything else to listen to.

He’d read all of the books that Crowley owned, he’d drunk a veritable ocean of cocoa, he’d cautiously sampled the various things that seemed to be available of Crowley’s telly, not that he really understood what they all were. He didn’t really like films, or at least he didn’t like watching them on his own. He had discovered Crowley’s cd Walkman, and his tape Walkman, and about eight or nine generations of headphones and had amused himself with Crowley’s extensive music collection. He had had a peek into Crowley’s office, which Aziraphale strongly suspected was really for playing video games in, he had riffled through Crowley’s bathroom cabinet, he had explored the mystery of the “closet” which was about the size of most warehouses and mostly full of boxes that had everything from priceless artifacts to horrible rotting mullet wigs. Crowley, it turned out, was a minimalist. He was also sentimental.

There was nothing left to do, and Aziraphale was starting to feel a bit twitchy. 

He could go home, of course. Crowley had assured him that his bookshop had been perfectly restored, and of course he believed it. But there was something about leaving Crowley here, unconscious and vulnerable, which distressed him. He had tried to leave, more than once in fact, but in the end he never quite had the nerve. Once a guardian angel, always a guardian angel, though with a nobler purpose now. 

Or maybe he just didn’t like the idea of being alone.

He had been pacing back and forth across the lounge for in excess of an hour now, trying either to find the resolve to leave, or to come up with anything at all that he might do while waiting, so he was quite prepared to accept any explanation for his own behaviour. He couldn’t leave. The very idea of setting foot outside, alone, was… inexplicably frightening. 

The last time he’d gone outside, he’d been grabbed and taken down to hell, and he’d had to watch Crowley get carried away too. He kept thinking about what would have happened if they hadn’t switched, if it had been Crowley that had been dragged down to hell and thrown into that bathtub, how he would have screamed and- and fizzed like that little reptile demon. It was too awful to contemplate and yet Aziraphale was struggling to think of anything else.

He and Crowley were safe, and everything was fine, and yet he couldn’t help feeling-

It was probably time to check in on Crowley. Make sure that he was alright. Aziraphale went out through the doors, around the corner, down the hall, through the ante-chamber, and there he was. Blankets pulled up to his chin, frowning only faintly in his sleep. So sweet, so handsome, so utterly defenceless. The sight of was deeply affecting and Aziraphale had to stay a moment in the doorway just to recover his breath.

Crowley was attractive in a way that seemed to defy rational explanation. Even now, with his hair spiked into peculiar formations and his mouth hanging open as he snored, Crowley was more beautiful than all art, all natural wonders. He was beyond compare, beyond description. He was also drooling slightly, which was inexplicably cute.

It didn’t do to loom over him, however, so soon Aziraphale was back in the lounge, pacing and wringing his hands. They were actually a little sore, now he thought of it. One of his favorite methods of calming his frantic mind was to squeeze the fingers of his right hand in his left, but sometimes he squeezed a bit too hard. He turned back towards the sofa as he shook his hands out and was viscerally reminded of the long, awful night before the trials, when he and Crowley had come up with their plan. He had stood here, facing the sofa, and had shaken the painful tension out of his hands. And then Crowley had gotten up, and like in a dream, had crossed the room and hugged him. 

Aziraphale had hugged a lot of people in his life. It was part of an angel’s job description, really. But for Aziraphale, there was something terribly awkward about hugging people he barely knew. So while he had hugged a lot of people, he had usually had to grit his teeth just to endure the discomfort of it.

When Crowley had hugged him, he’d actually relaxed. Never in his life had physical touch from another being felt so natural, so easy and pleasant. With one exception.

And now, here he was, in a cold and empty place, as tense as he could remember being, and Crowley, who, it seemed, had the power to soothe all anxieties, was sound asleep. Aziraphale was unable to help feeling that he could really do with a good hug just now. Or the next best thing. Regretfully, and with trepidation, he removed his coat and folded across the back of a nearby chair

*

Long ago, before Crowley, before the garden and the wall, before Eve, before Aziraphale had ever worn a human body, he had developed a habit of wandering off by himself. He didn’t always seem welcome in the conversations of the other angels, and there was very little for him to do. So he wandered.

He wandered through the great halls, past the sparkling fountains, through the gardens, which were only pale imitations of what real plants were going to look like, but were his favorite places all the same. 

He was sitting one day in the shade of a tree, his four cherub’s wings curled around him, when the Presence of God was with him.

“Oh! Um. Hello. Lord. It’s lovely to s- to talk to you. Is there, um, anything I can do?”

“I Was Wondering,” came the voice of God from all around him, “Who Grooms Your Wings, Aziraphale?”

“Oh. Well, um, uh-” he couldn’t lie fast enough. His mind was blank.

“No One?

“Sorry, my lord. I just never um. I never really worked out how everyone organized themselves into groups, so I never quite knew how to, you know.” He trailed off, embarrassed. 

“You Groom Them Yourself,” God said.

“I try, my lord.”

To his surprise, She didn’t upbraid Aziraphale for his unsoldierly appearance. Instead, She appeared in visual form beside him, coming into being with no fanfare. She smiled, and Aziraphale felt the tears well up in his eyes, so beautiful was the sight.

“May I Groom Your Wings, My Child?” She asked.

“Yes,” he gasped, overwhelmed.

Her hands were soft and warm. She was gentle and thorough, and it seemed hours that they stayed there while She smoothed every feather into place. Her presence alone was bliss, but Her touch was somehow even more affecting. To be literally touched by God was to experience total peace and total love. Every fear vanished like mist before the light of the sun and Aziraphale, serene like never before, very nearly fell asleep.

*

As it turned out, the incident was not to be repeated. God created the garden, the human race, and so on. Aziraphale lied to Her and was demoted to Principality, his second pair of wings removed, too low to ever see or speak to Her again.

*

His hands were not warm or sure. He only had two wings, although the phantom limb effect had never fully left him, meaning that, bare-chested as he was, his absent wings, the ones that once covered his nakedness, itched to wrap themselves around him again. Aziraphale couldn’t reach all of his own feathers, nor did he have a very good idea of what he was meant to do. Nevertheless, he purposefully smoothed down his ruffled feathers for a moment, before he closed his eyes and summoned the ersatz garden of heaven. He raised his own hands to his wing, trying to steady their shaking, imagining as best he could that God was there beside him. With every time that he groomed his wings, the memory of the garden had become less distinct, so that now, 6,000 years on, he remembered almost nothing. It had been nice, he knew. Peaceful, soothing, transcendent even. Those were simply adjectives that he had applied retroactively to the experience. They didn’t really convey it at all.

Nevertheless, the sheer act of pretending was a comfort. He conjured God in his mind’s eye, indistinct and fuzzy as the image was, and for a moment felt close to Her again.  
Sometimes Aziraphale missed God so fiercely it was like a stab wound. Sometimes when contemplating Her creation he was awestruck with the wonder of Her vision and the joyful love he had felt for Her in the Beginning welled up inside him. Sometimes he prayed to Her, even though he knew She would not answer, and kept Her updated on the petty details of his life, just in case. But though it was shameful, and it was wrong, Aziraphale didn’t think about Her all that often anymore. He offered casual prayers of gratitude for the things that made him happy or hopeful prayers to beg particular indulgences, but most of the time he lived his life and went about his business without missing God, without mourning their former communion, without regretting what he had done to offend Her.

Until times like these, when, absent any other comfort, he unrolled time and his own sin, and made himself into someone that God might deign to speak to again. Or tried to, anyway. 

There was God, there were Her warm and soothing hands, Her gentle voice, Her palpable love like sunlight, or like being immersed in warm water. Or like being wrapped up in two jumpers and a duvet, or whatever other approximation Aziraphale could jury-rig when he was feeling low. Her palpable love, like being wrapped in Crowley’s arms.

Aziraphale’s fingers tightened in his feathers, nearly pulling some out.

One week ago, he would have been furious with himself for making such a blasphemous comparison. Even now, it was difficult to get his fingers to loosen again, to resist the impulse to punish himself for his own sinfulness. 

If God had wanted them to save Her creation, which he believed She had, then She couldn’t hate Crowley, and his fall had to be part of Her plan and therefore not personal. The very thought awakened some protective impulse in Aziraphale. No one, no matter how impersonal they were, had the right to hurt Crowley. Or did they? 

Aziraphale wasn’t sure if he could choose between his Creator and his- his- whatever Crowley was to him. His best friend. His… beloved.

It was all too complicated for Aziraphale. He’d never been exactly quick-witted, and theology, particularly theodicy, went over his head. He trusted in God’s love and in her plan, and so far his trust had been rewarded.

Aziraphale resumed his grooming, doggedly trying to reconstruct his mental image of heaven.

“Hey, angel,” came Crowley’s voice behind him. Aziraphale startled badly, trying to simultaneously leap to his feet, turn around, and raise his wings in a defensive posture. He ended up on the floor, red-faced and slightly bruised.

“Goodness, Crowley! You gave me quite a shock!”

“I can tell,” said Crowley archly, as he extended a hand to pull Aziraphale to his feet.

“Doing a bit of wing-grooming, I see,” he added. “You look like you need it.”

“Yes, well,” said Aziraphale, folding his arms over his bare chest.

“Sorry. Not trying to be rude. Mine get the same way when I neglect them for a while. Have you been waiting here long?”

“I haven’t left, my dear. I’ve been here for five days.”

“Gosh. I’d better order us something to eat, then. Or will you want to finish with your wings, first. Of course you will. Okay then.” He said this all very quickly, before producing his little hand-held telephone from nowhere and flinging himself down on the sofa.

Aziraphale refolded his arms again, trying to cover himself as much as possible. 

“Do you have to-?”

“Oh I can leave, if you’d rather be alone. Although I remember angels getting in groups to groom each other’s wings. Do they not do that anymore?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Aziraphale acidly.

Crowley got up and smiled at him sadly as he went past. “I know how it is. Let me know when you’re done.”

“Wait,” said Aziraphale. “I’m not… I don’t really know if I’m doing it properly anymore. Would it be alright if I asked you to, um-?” 

“Give you a few pointers?”

“That sort of thing, yes,” said Aziraphale. He was blushing bright scarlet. 

“So I could see what you’re doing, and go off that. Or I could show you, whichever’s easier.”

The idea of grooming his own wings in front of Crowley seemed… voyeuristic, somehow. When the other angels in heaven had groomed their own wings, he had always slipped away to do it on his own. 

“Um,” he said. Asking for things was not a strong suit. “I think you had better show me,” he said, avoiding Crowley’s eyes. 

He sat down again, and Crowley elegantly folded himself onto the floor beside him. 

“Okay,” Crowley said. How was it possible for a voice to be so soft and yet so lacking in condescension? 

“Okay,” said Crowley again. “so, as you can see, I’m going to start…” and so it went.

Crowley talked him through both the technique and the principles, including information he had learned during his brief stint as a student of ornithology, and tricks that he had learnt from personal experience. Eventually, he worked his way around so that he was directly behind Aziraphale. Crowley must have seen the scars on Aziraphale’s back where his other, lost wings had been, the pair he never learnt to groom. If Crowley did, he made no mention of them.

“Do you ever miss God?” said Aziraphale abruptly.

“I, erm. Sort of complicated, that. Sometimes I do. You know, being in heaven, being surrounded by everything, it was perfect love, perfect peace, perfect everything. Until it wasn’t. I never really believed all that stuff that Lucy was always banging on about. Just kind of listened a bit and really tried to think it through. And then…” he sighed heavily. “And at first I thought, you know. How dare She. Fuck Her, if that’s how She reacts. She gave me intelligence! Where does She get off doing that to me just for using it!”

“Really I just missed Her. I wanted someone to give back the thing She took away, the love, the belonging, whatever. I’m never going to say that I’m glad She did that, because it was deeply, deeply painful and shitty to go through and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But all that love that they have in heaven, it’s… well you know, too. It’s very fake. It’s premised on compliance, normality, straightness, even. It’s coercive. So I think getting out of that was an opportunity, being on earth was an opportunity, so it’s meh. It’s neutral. And frankly, I like myself a lot more now than I did when I was an angel. And I wouldn’t be an angel again for anything. I’d rather die.”

“But yea, I do miss God. Not much, and not all the time, but I miss Her.”

“Do you know, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, “I think we’re very much alike.”

**Author's Note:**

> For those not aware, some sources describe the different ranks of angels as having differnt body configurations. Cherubs having four wings and four heads, and principalities having two wings and one head.  
> Once again, I owe some of my plot to AO3 user BuggreAlleThis, whose account I don't know how to link, unfortunately. They wrote a fic where Crowley needs a nap after the Ritz scene in the show and where Aziraphale waits for him to wake up. They also are one of the people who headcanons Aziraphale as having once been a Cherub, later demoted to Principality via the surgical removal of his second wings. One of their fics is in my bookmarks, if anyone wanted an easy way to find their work.


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